1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an air conditioner. More particularly, the present invention relates to a capacity-variable air conditioner configured to adjust refrigerant compression quantity of a compressor via bypass type refrigerant liquid quantity control thereby enabling to operate under an energy-efficient mode.
2. Description of the Related Art
Use of air conditioners like cooling and heating apparatus has been gradually expanded due to increased desire to pursue a pleasant environment in living spaces as well as office spaces. The air conditioner, as is well known, embodies a cooling or a heating function by a driving operation of a cooling cycle where a heat exchanging medium is circulated between an indoor unit and an outdoor unit.
The indoor unit acts to suck and discharge room air by way of mutual operation of a heat exchanger (evaporator) and a blow fan. The outdoor unit disposed with a compressor, a condenser and a cooling fan functions to suck and discharge outdoor air.
The indoor unit serves to evaporate via a heat exchanger refrigerant of high temperature and high pressure introduced through a compressor and a condenser mounted at an outdoor unit and phase-change the refrigerant to gaseous state. Under the circumstance, the refrigerant deprives air of heat via heat exchange to generate cold air, which is supplied to a room space and used to carry out cooling and freezing in response to operation of the blowing fan.
The cooling system of the conventional air conditioner thus described, well known in the art, and illustrated in FIG. 1 includes a compressor (1), a condenser (12), an expansion device (13) and an evaporator (14).
The compressor (11) compresses gaseous refrigerant to a gas refrigerant of high temperature and high pressure, while the condenser (12) causes the gas refrigerant of high temperature and high pressure to discharge heat and phase-changes the refrigerant to that of liquid state. The liquefied refrigerant of high pressure and high temperature is reduced in pressure while passing through the expansion device (13) to be evaporated in the evaporator (14). Under the circumstance, the refrigerant absorbs the ambient heat in the course of evaporation to cool the ambient air of the evaporator (14), which in turn forms a cool air and this is supplied indoors. The evaporated refrigerant is again infused into the compressor (11) to be compressed to a gas of high temperature and high pressure.
In other words, the conventional air conditioner is operated in such a manner that gaseous refrigerant of high temperature and high pressure discharged from the compressor (11) is cooled by the condenser (12) by way of blowing operation of a condenser fan (15) to form a liquefied refrigerant. The liquefied refrigerant thus formed passes through the expansion device (13) to be changed to two-phase refrigerant of low pressure and low temperature and sent to the evaporator (14). The two-phased refrigerant in the evaporator (14) is heated by an evaporator fan (16) and changed to gaseous refrigerant. The gaseous refrigerant is infused into the compressor (11) and repeats the process of being compressed to gas of high temperature and high pressure. In other words, the air conditioner is operated by the cooling cycle.
However, there is a disadvantage in the conventional air conditioner thus described in that excessive consumption of energy caused by intermittent operation of the compressor (11) under a normal drive mode deteriorates the pleasantness of operation and brings forth a problem of energy conservation.